


Burrowing

by Ciah



Category: Holby City
Genre: F/F, Jasmine x Morven, Lofty x Dom, Morven x Jasmine
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-25
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-11-19 01:44:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11303172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ciah/pseuds/Ciah
Summary: Jasmine and Morven are almost in love. If only they could hurry up and admit it.





	1. Chapter 1

Jasmine Burrows was exhausted. There was no other way that she could put it. Her short blonde hair had been scraped back into a messy ponytail and her black mascara was a smudged mess around her weary eyes. Yet another day being mentored by Holby's very own matriarchal Ms Campbell had taken its toll, not that she cared to admit it of course. She felt almost as if a flurry of patients had been prodding and poking at her body all day, rather than the other way around. It had seemed like it was her own heart going under the knife.  
   
The door of the apartment she shared with flatmate Morven seemed like long-awaited bliss in comparison to the bustling corridors of AAU. Normally, Jasmine craved the excitement and constant work that her job brought but right now she was glad to have been persuaded to go home. Her ice cold keys jingled in her warm and weak hands as she attempted to muster the last remnants of energy she had to unlock the door rather than just stand there staring at it like she had been doing for the previous ten minutes. It seemed like more effort than it should have done. Perhaps it felt heavier or perhaps she felt heavier herself.  
   
Upon entering the flat Jasmine couldn't help but feel a slight pang of disappointment as she realised Morven was still on shift and wouldn't be home for another few hours yet. The dark haired vibrant girl lit up the flat. Jasmine could always count on her warm laughter to bring a smile to her face even when she was on the brink of passing out from exhaustion. If only she could admit her feelings for her flatmate, Jasmine pondered, she would never need caffeine again. Even in her absence, Morven could be found in every inch of the place; from the photos of her and Arthur on the windowsill to the gigantic eclectic CD collection the girls shared and even in the mustard yellow blanket she had left on the sofa getting ready in a rush this morning. The blanket was Morven's favourite and like last night she often fell asleep nestled in it whilst watching some sort of documentary the subject of which Jasmine could never quite remember. Jasmine's contribution to the flat of the other hand was not quite so homely and was mainly remnants of uneaten takeaways that she had neglected to throw away.  
  
Her phone buzzed slightly in the pocket of her army green coat. The text made a smile curl onto her tired lips just one glance at the author's name gave her the slightest spark of energy that faded away as quickly as it came.  
  
 ** _"Goodnight loser. DON'T FORGET TO TIDY!!! xx"_**  
  
She shook her head as she closed her phone and smiled at the lock screen of her and Morven closely squashed together in Albies along with the rest of the AAU team. Each one of them beamed from ear to ear, filled with liquor for an occasion that she couldn't quite remember. It seemed too distant from her current reality. Jasmine had been through the wars. So often these days she had found herself up against Serena and always lost the fight.  
   
Throwing herself down on the lumpy secondhand sofa Jasmine recalled the long shift she had just completed. Everything these days seemed like it was one long blur. She had just admitted defeat and missed out on the operation she so had been longing for because she was too tired. Serena had been harsh on her. She knew that. Still, she couldn't help but feel as if she was to blame for her downfalls. Disappointment couldn't properly describe how she felt even though she knew that it was the right thing to do. Even she couldn’t power through the wave of exhaustion that she had been drowning recently.   
   
   
The lines between deep sleep and a hazy consciousness had become so thin that Jasmine didn’t realise when she fell into a slumber where she sat. She slept almost silently surrounded by pizza boxes and discarded socks. Nor did she realise when Morven returned home with the same sinking feeling upon discovering her roommate wasn’t available to listen to her stories. She didn’t even realise how the sunshine girl yearned for her too.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Jasmine wakes up late she begins a bad day with a happy ending.

Beating down on the window pane the rain raced down the glass. The smell of fresh coffee floated through the flat waking the weary Jasmine. Music from Morven’s laptop hummed quietly accompanied by the tinkle of a metal spoon against a ceramic cup. Jasmine slowly stirred to what looked like a romantic scene from an indie movie. It was a perfectly picturesque moment in time. Well, it was if you ignored Morven’s overenthusiastic screeching along to the music that was playing. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes Jasmine chose not to ignore it, instead picking a vibrant orange cushion from the sofa on which she sat and haphazardly flung it towards her wailing flatmate.  
   
“Do you even mind!?” the blonde girl scorned trying to hold back tired laughter. Morven responded by contorting her face into dramatic positions pretending as if she wasn’t aware how loudly or poorly she had been singing. She knew it made Jasmine laugh. The corners of her thin lips would curl showing her bright teeth and she would collapse into the giggle of a young school girl.  
   
“It’s only-” Jasmine continued jokingly complaining from the nest of blankets on the sofa. Her phone flickered on as Jasmine got ready to justify her mild, post-sleep, annoyance.  
“Shit! Shit! Shit!” jumping up suddenly from the sofa Jasmine brushed down her clothes from yesterday and began pulling on the closest pair of shoes she could find. Her frantic swearing continued as she ran from room to room stuffing her bag with essentials for the day.  
   
Morven tilted her head to the side in a way that made her tightly wound curls bounce along her face. She shot her flatmate a knowing look and grinned.  
“When does your shift start, Jasmine?” Morven stirred her coffee knowing, almost instinctively, that Jasmine was going to be late. Jasmine had a habit of being late to her shifts. Not all of her lateness was down to her incompetence but with a combination of poor bus schedules, heavy drinking, and general ditzy spells it happened far too regularly.  
   
Clutching her purse and wearing Morven’s brown boots Jasmine reemerged into the room.   
“In ten minutes” she replied checking the time on her phone and pulling her bag onto her shoulder. Morven held out the tangerine coloured cup in which she had been making her morning coffee. Jasmine graciously accepted the drink and downed the warm liquid before running to the bus stop outside the block of flats. Caffeine, she thought, was the only way she could possibly make it through the day.  
   
Morven's shift started a couple of hours later than her flatmate's so she stood there in the living room waiting for the kettle to reboil in the aftermath of the whirlwind that was Jasmine Burrows. Jasmine left a mess that was unconquerable. She was late consistently. Generally, Jasmine was unorganised and untamable but she tried without question and had a heart fit to burst with naive hope. Even in the remnants of Jasmine's feverish morning routine, Morven couldn’t help but grin. As much as she tried to hide it Morven couldn’t deny that Jasmine was the kind of girl she needed. Jasmine was the kind of girl that Movern could love.  
   
At this point, Jasmine had managed to reach Holby City Hospital only twenty minutes late.  Breathing heavily she burst through the doors of AAU making direct eye contact with Oliver Valentine in a way that said ‘If you tell anyone I'm late you are as dead as I am!’ Ollie laughed and shook his head before placing his eyes firmly back on the computer screen, pretending as if he’d never been disturbed.  
   
It took Jasmine a further four minutes to change into her light blue scrubs and tie her messy blonde hair into a short ponytail. She tried to keep her head down and stay out of sight to avoid detection but as soon as she walked out the door of the locker room her eyes instantly locked with her superior.  
   
“I am going to kill him!” Jasmine muttered under her breath thinking herself foiled by the smirking heart surgeon at the desk. Indicating for Jasmine to follow her, Ms Wolfe proceeded to walk through the ward.  
   
“I was in the army, Dr Burrows. Do you really think I could be outwitted by Valentine?”   
   
Bernie raised her dark eyebrows opening the curtain to an old man sat in the hospital bed. He had an almost creepy look in his eye as he stared down the young F1. Pieces of glass and metal fence stuck out of the torso of the man for reasons that Jasmine dared not to question. He had a yellowing grin and cracked lips that repeatedly formed the word ‘darling’. It was her fault for being late, she supposed. She nodded politely at the man's creepy flirtations that sent a shiver down her spine. She asked all the appropriate questions as she dug the rubble from his chest. Grinning and bearing it was the best way to get through a day like this, after all at least she hadn’t yet been assigned to bedpans.  
   
   
The day droned on: stitching, cleaning and diagnosing the most mundane injuries that could be found. It was days like these that reminded her of the parts of the job that she loved by making her do the ones she hated and although it was a relief from the hectic past few weeks Jasmine was tired of it. On her break, the young doctor made her way up onto the hospital's roof. The roof was often the place where all the worn-down misfits of Holby went to escape their troublesome patients and tiresome colleagues. The air was cold and the ground was still wet from the morning rain. Opening the door onto the roof Jasmine sighed deeply, she was relieved to be free for a moment. She couldn’t make her day any worse up here, she thought. Just then her baby blue eyes caught sight of someone sat on the floor on the roof’s edge. A dark curl of hair. The woman who was sat on the roof was staring out at the ever-busy carpark.  
   
“Fancy seeing you here?” Jasmine smiled sitting down next to the person she had identified to be Morven. Both the girls sat there in silence for a minute wearing matching scrubs and grey hospital hoodies to protect themselves from the cold.  
   
“How has your day been so far then?” Morven spoke quietly not wanting to ruin the almost quiet. She could tell from the look in Jasmine's eyes that she had been assigned to odd-jobs and routine procedure. Jasmine lay her head down on Morven's shoulder in response; her smile melted slightly.  
   
“Terrible.” She sighed “Not only was I late but then I had to do the most menial tasks ever as a punishment or maybe because I couldn’t handle anything else. Also, there is Mr Jameson who I swear if he calls me darling again I might just…. I might just kill him.That's not to mention the bedpans or Ollies sickly smile every time I have to do something tedious whilst he get’s to do all the interesting cases. Just because he's spent all that time on Darwin shouldn't mean that he gets all the mildly intresting patients. And-” Morven tried to sympathise but ended up trying to stifle a laugh that she couldn’t contain. There was something about the way Jasmine’s eyebrows danced and her arms flailed as she angered and the way her sentences ran on forever without real pause.  
“What?” Jasmine sat up slightly offended at her friend not sympathising with her _very real_ problems. This just caused Morven to laugh louder in a way that Jasmine couldn’t help but join in. Morven's laugh was hearty and infectious. The kind of laugh that made you feel warmer even when it was mainly aimed at you.  
   
“The way you get annoyed-” Morven stopped to chuckle further “It’s just adorable. I can’t take you seriously.” Pulling the blonde girl closer to her Morven tried to apologise in between laughs but Jasmine didn’t really mind. Even when being teased, the time she spent with Morven easily took her mind off of the horrors of her day on AAU. The two of them almost always found ways to make each other laugh. Right there on the roof, she couldn’t think of a better person to be teased by or a better person to hold her in between stifled giggles. Her cold hands slipped out of her hoodie pocket and she placed it on top of Morven's. For a while, neither of them moved their hands. They remained naturally intertwined as if they knew how they both felt but had no way to say it, so they just stayed attached to each other in silence and the remnants of fading laughter.  
   
“Jasmine…” Morven spoke softly. They had one of those friendships that people often mistook them for being in love. Perhaps they were. They were all hugs and outward affection but this seemed different. Even on the rain-drenched floor, Morven felt warm with her hand wrapped in Jasmines. It felt like it did at the start with Arthur. It felt how it had felt Nathan. The coffee and the smiles as she fumbled around the flat. The little things she noticed about Jasmine made her smile for days. Her free hand moved to hold Jasmine’s pale face as she looked into her sweet eyes which stared back into hers.  
 Morven began to repeat the name of the other girl again. There was a kind of buzz between them as they leant in. Neither knew who started the kiss but there they were on the roof of the hospital doing what each of them had thought about for months. Their foreheads and lips pressed together. As they parted again the rain began again like it had done that morning.   
   
Jasmine stood up after a couple of minutes of blissful quiet and began to walk towards the door to avoid the rain and avoid spoiling the moment. Part of her felt the need to apologise or explain what just happened but in truth, she also couldn’t explain it. Jasmine could have explained it about as well as Morven could. Neither of them knew what to say. Neither of them dared to say much. She just turned to Morven who sat in a state of serene shock. The kind of a shock where you’ve been waiting for something for a long time but never quite thought it would ever happen.  
   
“Albies?” Jasmine softly smiled. She knew the pair clocked off at a similar time that night and although she knew she had to head back to the ward she couldn’t wait to see Morven again.  
   
“Albies.” Morven replied. She sat there for a while afterwards breathing in everything. The cars in the carpark, the clouds in the sky that rained down on her, and even the feel of the kiss that remained on her lips. She didn’t want to forget anything. If only she could pause the moment or photograph it, she would never choose to forget a thing.  
   
  
  



	3. Chapter 3

Albies was abuzz as it often was after a long shift. Stools around most of the bar were filled with nurses and doctors recently freed from their work duties. Some roamed on their own drowning sorrows whilst most stayed in packs buying rounds and sharing tales. A few people from Darwin sat on stools at the bar toasting a lost, beloved, patient. The gang from Keller sat around a comically small table, Sacha dramatically telling a story of the day's patients whilst his friends sat and listened attentively clinging to their drinks. His aggressively floral shirt was flickered with the remains of a spilt drink as it was jokingly slammed on the table. It was a place of messy happiness opposing the strict rules of hospital procedure and bedside manner.

Jasmine smiled as she walked in, noticing the kerfuffle that was occurring amongst the music that was playing from the bar. She sat down on the empty side of the bar after looking for Morven and lucking out. Her hair had been taken out of her ponytail but her feet remained clad in Morven's borrowed boots. It was too early for a cocktail and she was too alone to drink herself into a trance so she ordered herself a vodka and coke. She held the cup in her hand and stared at it for a long time. The rest of the day ran over and over again in her head. Jasmine Burrows had just kissed her best friend and she had kissed her back. She couldn’t get the picture of the rain and Morven staring out at the view from the roof out of her mind. However, the more she thought about it the hopeful smile Jasmine had thinking about the day turned into a sense of lingering doubt. Why hadn’t Morven turned up yet? Did she regret it? Was she ignoring her? Perhaps Morven had just gotten caught up in the moment and was now sat at home hoping Jasmine never mentioned the incident again.

“Are you planning on drinking that?” A familiar voice spoke behind Jasmine barely a moment later. Jasmine’s drink had remained largely untouched as she sat lost in thought. Morven stood shyly smiling at her. She ordered a gin and tonic as she took a seat next to the bumbling Jasmine. The pair sat there for a couple of minutes silently sipping their drinks. It wasn’t that there was an awkwardness between them but more that each of them had so much to say that they feared that if they began to speak they would never stop.   
Slowly the conversation began, first talking over the troublesome patients and risky surgery before dissolving into their usually loud laughter filled chat. 

“Can I buy you a drink?” the voice of an off-duty nurse spoke appearing next to them causing Jasmine to look up from her conversation in a mixture of surprise and disgust. She raised her eyebrow sharply and stared at him. Most of the time she wouldn’t object to being bought a drink but really? Clearly, he should have seen their conversation was not one that deserved to be interrupted. At least not by someone looking to hopelessly chat up the already lovestruck F1.

“I don’t mean like that-” He said quickly, noticing Jasmine's death stare and running his fingers through his dark curly hair in an embarrassed panic. He wasn’t the kind of guy that often burst into conversations and for a second forgot the connotations of his proposal.  
“I’m getting a round in and I thought-” He pointed at the Keller table who sat eagerly awaiting new drinks. His attempts to rectify himself were noted by Morven, who shook her head slightly recognising the new nurse who had stood in for a missing AAU nurse on a previous shift.

“Meet Lofty,” she said gesturing to the man who was trying to think of any way possible to save the situation. 

“He’s the new nurse on Keller and you should probably stop trying to kill him with your eyes right now” She chuckled. He waved slightly, causing Jasmine to drop the menacing look she had adopted and instead fall into hasty apologies. Each of them sat in their own awkward shame for a slight second then fell into laughter at the slight absurdity of the situation.

“Jasmine, right?” Lofty asked remembering her name from some story he had been told on the ward. One he could not identify at first. Then a dawning realisation began to show on his face.

“You got transferred from Keller right? Something to do with Ric...” He trailed of careful not to misremember the story’s details. Morven nodded for her as Jasmine bowed her head in shame that this even this apparently new nurse knew of her dubious past.

“Not a people person are you Jas?” Morven laughed.  
“ I wouldn’t recommend her for paediatrics!” She shoved Jasmine playfully who ducked further in shame. Although this was a running joke between them it was also painfully true. Jasmine's reputation with dealing with the senior staff wasn't something to be admired. She attempted to protest her innocence but just fell into laughter that spread amongst them.   
Lofty tried to peel himself away and return to whatever was preoccupying him at his table before being called back.

“Oy! I think you owe me a drink” Jasmine called to him refusing to ignore his previous offer.He quickly pulled a note out of his pocket paying for the girls next drinks and the round for Keller he had promised to buy around ten minutes ago. Lofty placed the drinks in front of the pair before quickly heading back to his table.   
His hurried and flustered demeanour was for a reason Morven couldn’t detect but Jasmine caught onto quickly. Then again Jasmine was often better at these things. This was a who not a what.  
Looking around she noticed how Lofty’s eyes were firmly fixed on the junior doctor who sat in front of him. Dominic Copeland sipped from his new glass, unable to keep his smile from showing as he told a joke, which Lofty listened intently to. They were all smiles and secret admiration. Jasmine wouldn’t have put the two of them together but at least from the distance of the bar, they looked smitten without admitting it to one another. Maybe there was something in the air. Perhaps cupid was feeling trigger happy or perhaps it’s easier to spot others falling when you are too.

“What is this? What are we?” Jasmine asked suddenly not knowing exactly what answer she was after. She didn't want to pin her hopes on a girl who wouldn't want her. She wanted to make sense of it all. Her eyes locked directly with Morven's who shrugged slightly as she stared softly back.

“I don’t know Jas” In truth Morven hadn’t dared to think too much into it. Her love life had never gone especially well and past experience often showed that loving meant losing and she didn’t want to lose Jasmine. Not that she could help the permanent smile that the blonde girl planted on her face.  
“Maybe it’s better if we figure it out together” She continued her hand lightly brushing over Jasmine’s. Jasmine had no need to reply. She was content with that. She leant further into Morven and rested her head lightly on her shoulder in a way intended not arouse suspicion.

The taxi ride home was spent with fingers tentatively intertwined in the darkness of the cab. The day's rain still dripped down the darkened windows as he chilly night air had crept inside. At home, they both went straight to sleep trying to preserve a strange and beautiful day that found its feet in what was a messy beginning. They wiped away the lipstick and faded into their duvets but the tipsy feeling stayed. They dreamt the other into their pillows, each hoping to wake up to the other in the blissfully wandering around the kitchen.


End file.
